A new name for our field

Hello Program Management Colleagues,

Deborah Kennedy, the Executive DIrector of the National Coalition for Literacy, and I, in my role as Steering Committee member of the Open Door Collective, have co-authored an NCL blog article about the development of a new name for our field, "Adult Foundational Education". I encourage you to read and share a link to the article with your colleagues. I also welcome your comments here, or directly to me, about the name and the proposed definition that you will find at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BTroPf5NCwcQIy_drWO5pzd44GE2fbmWNp71VyrqZCc/edit?usp=sharing

One clarification: this name is not proposed as a new name for programs or adult schools in the field but rather as a name for the field itself that currently goes by several, often confusing or ambiguous names. Deborah and I feel that a new well-defined name would serve many purposes. Read the blog article for more about that.

I welcome your comments and questions about the blog article, the proposed name for the field, and about the definition of the name. If you are interested in the process that led up to the proposed name that involved feedback from the field, an extensive discussion began in January 2022 in the LINCS Teaching and Learning community. You will find that at https://community.lincs.ed.gov/group/30/discussion/what-adult-foundational-skills-education

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com